A blog dedicated to documenting my progression as a hobbyist, and my eternal indecision about what to paint next!

Tuesday 25/10/2011 – Why Space Marines have Armoured Buttflaps

As I’m sure the name suggests, today was not a particularly successful day for the forces of the Raven Guard… Why? Let’s find out!

Game 1 – 40k 750pts Raven Guard vs Sisters of Battle

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Pitched Battle

OH MY GOOD GOD!

Who worked out the points values for these things?!

Celestine – 115 points of unkillable death, it took Shrike himself five or six successive rounds of combat to kill the little bitch!

Exorcists – Absolutely filthy! The random amount of shots can hurt either the player or the opponent, but there is no denying that the potential of six Str8 AP1 shots each can make even the toughest of armour vehicles feel the pain. However, I’m glad I just faced the one, as two (as I’d expect to see at 1000+ points) would have buggered me over completely. 1D6 shots is nice, but factor in Ballistic Skill and Armour Values, and having one working alone is simply not enough. (Luckily for me…)

Penitent Engines – Ah, redeeming one’s self by strapping in to an armoured killing machines and pumping yourself full of stimms… These models are the bane of any Str4 model’s existance. My opponent fielded two, and while one was dragged around the board like a piece of string due to Rage, the other one was either squashing Scouts or pulling open Power Armour to get at the squishy Superhuman goodness inside! Unfortunately, I did not realise that these little buggers are open-topped (neither did my opponent) otherwise it would have been sliced and diced by a well-placed Relic Blade attack, rather than being simply Immobilised and proceeding to mince what remained of my army…

Faith Points – I see their potential, but they’re easily forgettable (my opponent didn’t roll ONCE) and do not scale to the size of the game. You have D6 points at 500pts, and D6 points at 50,000pts. If this were to be corrected, I’m sure we could see some pain being delivered on a much larger scale.

Shield of Faith – The Black Templars can choose to get a 6+ Invulnerable Save at the expense of cover, Sisters of Battle get the same save but CAN use cover. One could think that that’sthe only benefit and that it’s not overly useful. However, everything gets it! When you roll that destroyed result on an Exorcist, or you kill the last member of a squad on an objective only to be foiled by a 6++ save – irritating to say the least!

I remain humbled by this experience, and I shall treat the Sisters with more care next time…

DAMN YOU ROBIN CRUDDACE!!!

Game 2 – 40k 1500pts Raven Guard vs Dark Eldar

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Dawn of War

This one doesn’t really need explaining really. Many many Hellions vs an army consisting mostly of Scouts that follishly didn’t outflank and kinda jumped in on Turn 1…it was never destined to end well!

One round went well for me, and that was my opponent’s movement phase. Baron Sathonyx rolled a 1 for Dangerous Terrain, followed by a 1 for his Skilled Rider reroll, followed by a 1 for his Shadow Field. Hooray!

I think maybe this game went so badly due to the fact both armies are CC-Oriented, and the Dark Eldar are simply faster and with potential for +1 Attack, +1 Strength or Rerolls to Wound, they are generally better at it! Next time, I believe that a more balanced army that actually can shoot might be the way forward…

Suitably destroyed (I believe the term butt-raped was used at several points), I shall go back to the drawing board and create a new, fun, themed army to use! if it’s not for shits and giggles, it’s not for me!